CONTEXTUAL INSIGHTS

Between 1999 and 2018, 27 people in NZ died in an avalanche. Nineteen of these people (70%) were mountaineering. This high proportion is out of step with what is seen overseas in North America and Europe, where the percentage of mountaineering fatalities is typically much lower.

Furthermore, in the 20 years between 1999-2018, there were 742 reported avalanche incidents in NZ across all forms of recreational and commercial backcountry activities. Of these, only a small number were reported by mountaineers (25, or 3.4%).

Analysis of these 742 reported avalanches indicates that most of them occurred during winter months, but a large proportion of the fatalities occurred during spring and summer, the prime mountaineering season.

Combined, these findings present a compelling picture and raise some key questions…

MONTHLY REPORTED AVALANCHE INCIDENTS AND FATALITIES

AVALANCHE FATALITIES BY ACTIVITY

WHY DO MOUNTAINEERS MAKE UP SUCH A HIGH PROPORTION OF AVALANCHE FATALITIES IN NEW ZEALAND?

Since 1999, almost all reported avalanche incidents involving mountaineers have been fatal. By comparison, backcountry skiing/snowboarding recorded 380 incidents during this period with only two fatalities. This situation raises some obvious questions, such as ‘Is there a reporting issue?’ and even if there is a reporting bias with non-fatal incidents (which there certainly is not with fatalities), why does this happen?

There are undoubtedly practical reasons for the disproportionate representation of mountaineers in fatalities, such as the nature of the terrain, weather and conditions, and possible participation differences. However, do these reasons really explain all of the difference compared to activities like backcountry skiing/snowboarding? Could there be other factors at play here, such as a behavioural, attitudinal or cultural component within the mountaineering community towards avalanche safety?

As MSC sought to answer and better understand, these complex questions, it became apparent that the human factors contributing to this complex equation were totally unknown. No one had ever explored the attitudes, behaviours and cultural considerations of the New Zealand mountaineering community.

Without this knowledge, how could we begin to understand why mountaineers were so overwhelmingly represented in avalanche fatalities? And so, this research project was born.